The Oakdale wrestling team was coming off a disappointing third-place finish at the Frederick County Tournament last weekend. Going into the final round of action at Milford Mill on Saturday at the 3A/4A North Region Tournament, the Bears held an 8.5-point lead over North Hagerstown, 129.5-121. That lead shrank during the round, and at one point North was up by 4-1/2 points, but Oakdale battled back, ending up with the victory, 148.5-139.

“We knew it was going to be a battle between North Hagerstown and Urbana,” said Oakdale coach TJ Salb. “We just put in a hard week of practice after the county tournament. We had a little bit of a let down from our performance, individually and as a team. The kids were resilient. They rebounded, they regrouped, they worked their tails off this week, and we’re sending eight to states out of nine. We’re proud of them. They battled, there’s a lot of tough matches. The competition here is just getting better every year, and they did what they needed to do.”

Oakdale will be taking eight wrestlers to the MPSSAA state wrestling tournament at the Showplace Arena in Prince George’s County next weekend, including two champions, Logan McKoy (170) and Bryce DeMaille (220).

McKoy, who is the No. 1 170lb 3A/4A wrestler per the Maryland State Wrestling Association, pinned No. 2 Kaleb Corbin (North Hagerstown) to secure his second career region title. The first was as a sophomore in the 1A/2A West Region.

“I knew it was a close race between us and North Hagerstown,” McKoy said. “So, I was just thinking bonus points, you know. That’s how you win tournaments. I was sloppy all through the first period, but I did what I needed to do and caught him on his back. I could have wrestled better, but I was happy. I feel good. I think, even some of the guys that came up short, it’s impressive that we could still put up that many points, enough to win a region title. We expected to do even better than we did.”

When No. 1 DeMaille (No. 4 overall in the state) took the mat, the Bears had a 3-1/2-point lead over the Hubs. A win by DeMaille would seal the deal for Oakdale. The junior came through with a pin for his second region crown in the third period over Manchester Valley’s No.22 Harrison Walsh.

“I was just thinking wrestle to my potential and everything would work itself out,” DeMaille continued. “Bonus points are always in mind, but ultimately, if I lose there’s no bonus points, so I was just thinking get the win and then once I’m up, work for the pin. I think it went well. I think that I went out there confident and wrestled to my potential, so did the rest of our guys, and that’s why we came out on top today. No one really expected us to win it, especially after placing third at counties behind Middletown and Urbana. But we came out today and proved that we can wrestle with anyone.”

North Hagerstown crowned two champions, both for their third titles, Brian Stuart (126) and Aaron Brooks (160). The two grapplers, both juniors, will be looking to capture their third state championships next weekend.

Stuart, No. 1 at 126, downed No. 2 Earl Blake (Linganore) 15-6 in a repeat of last year’s region and state finals matches. Brooks also came out ahead in a battle of one versus two. Brooks’ match with Dundalk’s Robert Doestch (a 152lb state champ last year) was the most anticipated of the final round. Unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype as Doetsch defaulted mid-way through the match with a shoulder injury. Brooks was winning the bout at the time, having controlled all facets of the match.

“I just wanted to have fun,” Brooks said. “Stay loose. I always think about wrestling my match. Visualize my moves and stuff. I knew I was breaking him, so I was like, let me just keep the pressure on him because I was getting shots and he was going out of bounds. I was like, if I just keep doing this eventually I’ll get these shots in bounds. I locked up a tight cradle, he slid out of bounds, but I could feel him gassing. I could feel him breaking. I just wanted to keep coming at him. When I let him up, (I wanted to) be right in his face.”

Urbana’s third place finish was powered by a tournament high five champions. In fact, the Hawks went five-for-five in the championship finals. Reaching the top of the podium were, Cody Swigart (120), Logan Arneson (138), Shane Acton (145), Jake Nielson (152), and Kevin Makosy (195). All five are first time champs.

One of the more exciting bouts of the finals occurred at 113lbs. No.6 Terrell Mills (Poly, No. 8 overall) took an early 4-2 lead over No. 21 Gorsha Reitterer (Lansdowne), but Reitterer is a fighter, and refused to give in. The senior started putting his own points on the board in the second period and walked away with a 13-6 victory.

“I had to battle back obviously,” Reitterer added. “That’s my style of wrestling. I like the battle. I’m not a very good first period wrestler. The second and third is where I shine the most. I don’t think much. I just do. I just knew I had to get some points somehow, and I knew they were probably coming from reversals. When it was the third period, and it was like nine to four, or five, or something, I felt it. And when I got the two points at the end of the period, right at the end. That was big for me too.”

Another crowd-pleasing bout was the 182lb final. No. 6 Garrett Vandervalk (Westminster) and No. 7 Mervyn Crawford (Poly) were locked in a dead heat throughout a match that eventually went into overtime. 17 seconds into the extra period, Vandervalk tossed Crawford to his back and picked up the fall.

“I just knew I had better conditioning than him,” Vandervalk relayed. “I work hard every day in the wrestling room. I knew my conditioning would push me through the match. I was not letting him go anywhere (when he secured the fall in overtime). I knew it was overtime, but I just wanted to stick him and get it over with.”

The heavyweights threw the state rankings into disarray during the semi-final round when No. 7 Alon Hugh (Woodlawn, No. 19 overall) edged No. 3 Shawn King-Pombo (South Hagerstown), 9-7. On the other side of the bracket, Dundalk’s Yeabsira Tilahun (No.23) won a close match of his own over No.2 Jamie Rodriguez (Westminster), 3-2.

This set up a showdown of Baltimore County rivals, with Hough and Tilahun ending regulation in a tie, 1-1. The momentum swung in Hough’s favor after that though, as he piled up the points and earned a 9-1 major-decision.

“What I try to do, I try to keep a short-term memory,” Hough added. “When I went into regionals, I always thought that every match I wrestled was my last match. So, I had to give it my all in my last match. I just had to have more heart. After the counties, I had to work on standing up. So, all week, I’ve been working on standing up and getting my balance right. Me and Tilahun have a long history of battles. I always knew that the only way to beat him was if I just hold my offense. He’s a great defensive wrestler. I tell you that, he’s a great defensive wrestler. I just had to be smart about my offense, and just go in there just wrestling smart. Before, I used to just go in, go crazy, go wild, and he’ll capitalize on that. This time, I kinda slowed down the pace and tried to take control of it myself.”

Franklin’s No. 4 Phil Smith (106) kept his undefeated campaign going with a pin of North Hagerstown’s Tyler Cook at the 5:20 mark of the third period. The freshman is 38-0 on the season.

“It felt pretty good,” Smith said. “I had to work hard for it. I wrestled a little sloppy. I gotta fix that before states. I’m just going to keep on the grind, and try to win states.”

Manchester Valley’s Zach McAleer won the 132lb title with a first period pin of South Hagerstown’s Caleb Everhart.

At the end of the long day, a satisfied Salb took a moment to reflect on his team’s performance.

“(We) lost a couple close ones. You know, whenever you don’t win them all there’s a letdown, but the kids closed the gap on some of the matches where we maybe got beat a little bit better last week. We had guys place fourth in the county, maybe fifth, that came back and took third today. So, we’re proud of the sophomores. We have a lot of young guys. This is their first time at the regions. We weren’t sure how they were gonna respond, and they responded great. They battled, they fought hard. They were losing matches, they came back. Everything we preach about what this sport is about, about fighting, tenacity, getting knocked down, getting back up. They really, some of them wrestled above what we thought they were going to this weekend, so we can’t be more proud of them.”